“At least neither you nor Maddy needs to be afraid,” Ivan Romanov told his cousin as they stood together inside her home. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s another reason why Fralick sent her down here, so that she’d be out of the way and anything she might witness wouldn’t be an issue after he got hold of Linc.”
The house was so terribly, unbelievably empty. “I bought this place because I thought I needed somewhere to be alone,” Katy Romanova said, in a voice that was needlessly hushed. “That even more than so my sons could have a place to stay on Narsai, a place that could be another home for them. But now I realize I’ve hardly ever been here by myself, and I don’t want to be!”
Johnnie put his familiar arm around her, and she leaned into him and absorbed comfort from his touch. There was a lot to be said for relationships that went back to a time when she had not been Fleet Admiral Romanova, not yet even a lowly cadet. It sometimes was wonderful to be held by someone who had been an adult while she was still a child, someone who had loved her then and who still loved her now.
He turned his head and kissed her, his lips pressing against her temple through her hair. It was a gesture that the few times George Fralick had seen it, had sent him into one of his prolonged sulks. But Linc never minded when Johnnie caressed her, Linc understood what the old bond meant.
What it really meant to a pair of Narsatians, not what it appeared to mean to a human male of Kesran upbringing or to a Morthan hybrid who’d grown up in exile on Sestus 3. But Linc didn’t have to rely on appearances, Linc knew what went on in his wife’s mind and in her heart.
“Mum?” Maddy sounded like a little girl, now. But that was a normal thing at thirteen, to ricochet wildly between child and adult and to do so without warning. Even if the girl hadn’t had what must surely have been the strangest day of her short life…and it was going to get stranger, Katy thought as she put out the arm that wasn’t around Johnnie and drew her daughter close.
“The only Star Service ship in orbit when we both felt Linc leaving us, was the one your father and you came here on, Maddy,” Katy said in her gentlest voice. “I’m not saying George is responsible, after all he’s a civilian diplomat. But I do have to think that Linc is aboard the Archangel, I just don’t see what else could have happened to him now that I’ve got the background straight.”
“I think so, too,” Maddy said, just as seriously and with adulthood back in her tone. “Are we going after him, Mum? Or are you going to call Papa and ask him to make Captain Giandrea bring Linc back?”
So simple, that solution. So easy and so obvious. If her father had done something to hurt her mother, it had to be a mistake; once he understood that, he would fix it. Even though the girl couldn’t help knowing that George Fralick detested Lincoln Casey, she clearly did not realize that her beloved “papa” was capable of harming the woman who had been his wife and had given him his children.
But Katy knew just how much he was capable of injuring her, that although he would not allow anyone else to do her harm he had no compunctions whatsoever about hurting her himself. And he hated Linc, far more than even Linc himself could suspect.
Katy cuddled her daughter close, and said softly, “I’m not sure what we’re going to do next, love. But your papa’s not going to be able to help us with this, we’re going to have to do it ourselves.”
Not able? A falsehood, perhaps. Or perhaps not, because returning Romanova’s husband to her unharmed was something George Fralick probably was genuinely incapable of doing now that he had finally managed to separate them after so many years of wanting to do so.
In the cavernous equipment barn at the Romanova Farmstead, Daniel Archer shook his head as he looked at his little trade-ship and marveled that Hansie had been able to set it down so precisely. But then, Hansie had been the finest pilot in the Star Service; any order that had taken away her commission for reasons unconnected with her behavior was a stupid order conceived (although not given) by a pack of fools.
“I never can believe that anything valuable can be moved from one world to another in such a small ship,” came Rachel Kane’s soft voice from Archer’s elbow. Executive officer of a starship she might once have been, but for the first time in her life this woman was experiencing what it felt like to have her fate in her own hands. She was accustomed to being responsible for other lives, for a powerful ship, for choices that could affect millions of other people’s futures; yet she was completely new at deciding how to spend any of her own time except for a few hours of “relaxation,” because until now her whole life had been mapped out and all she had done was her duty.
“Perspective!” Dan said, and grinned. “I was just thinking how lucky we were to get anything as big as the Triad out of sight, on a world like Narsai that’s either wide open spaces or crowded cities and not much in between.”
“I don’t understand why she hasn’t been detected by now.” Rachel reached out a hand to caress the ship’s hull, with a look of wonder on her face that her companion understood well. How often was it possible to touch a ship from the outside, with one’s bare skin? Not often, unless the ship was a minuscule shuttle or a lifeboat like the one that had sheltered Rachel for months while she and her unborn children lay suspended and awaiting rescue.
“If this were Terra or Kesra, or even one of the Sestus worlds, she would have been,” Dan answered. “I’m not sure about Mortha, I don’t know as much about how things work there. But on Narsai, you don’t scan someone else’s farmstead from a ship or satellite in orbit to find out exactly what equipment’s in the maintenance barns and what crops are growing and how many people are in the farmhouse. It’s not just impolite, it’s not allowed.”
“So our safety right now depends on Narsatians being polite to each other?” Kane cocked her head, and the humor she’d learned from her classmates during her Academy days curved her mouth for a moment.
“You could put it that way, I suppose, but it wouldn’t be quite accurate. It’s not just a question of courtesy, Ms. Kane; it’s a question of respect for custom that has the force of law. And if a visiting ship is detected making intrusive scans, its owners are invited to take their trade elsewhere.” The voice that answered her wasn’t Dan’s voice, it was that of Reen Romanova. The silver-haired farm woman had come into the barn quietly, but not quietly enough to startle the two former military officers. If she had done that, one of them might have hurt her before realizing who she was—and Reen knew that. She wasn’t familiar with many such people, but her cousin Katy was also her close friend.
“I can’t imagine how you make policies like that one work here,” Kane said. “But then, I can’t imagine being a civilian.”
“Well, you are one now!” Dan patted her shoulder, in a gesture that might have been a lover’s caress or a comrade’s reassurance but that he probably intended as both. “So, Reen. Narsai Control thinks they found us?”
“I believe so,” Reen answered. “Katy just got condolences on your death from official sources, anyway. And the caller wanted to know why they found an extra person’s DNA traces in the wreckage.”
“Let me guess,” Archer said, and he grinned. “An extra human female? Age about 30, which made her younger than any of the three human females who were supposed to be aboard the Triad?”
“Yes.” Reen looked directly at Rachel Kane. “Odd DNA, too. If they didn’t know better, they would have thought that trader had a gen aboard. But that would be impossible, of course, because gens are too valuable to be sold as slaves or as indentured servants.”
Archer laughed aloud. Kane looked as if she couldn’t decide whether to give him a hug, or hit him. After a moment she inquired dryly, “What did you use, Dan? To give them a nice clean sample of my DNA without making them realize you planted it?”
“Oh, that was easy. I just kept the stasis capsule from your lifeboat when I sold the boat itself back to the Star Service as salvage.” Archer was still amused, although less ebulliently so now. “Had to get it off there anyway. We could sterilize the rest of the boat to conceal that you were ever aboard, but that capsule we’d have had to destroy. And that seemed like a hell of a waste, since I knew the time might come when we’d want to convince someone you weren’t just missing but good and dead.”
“When can we get off Narsai? And who was it that set us up, anyway?” Kane’s sense of humor was stiff, even after years of practicing its use. On one level she admired and enjoyed her lover’s mirth, but on another level she found it unsettling. Even downright annoying, sometimes.
“While I was off the ship getting you hooked up with the Matushka, the Archangel showed up in orbit and they sent over an inspection party. Triad’s a Commonwealth trader, not registered out of a particular port of origin, so unfortunately they had a perfect right. They went everywhere—and if Hansie and the others hadn’t gone right along behind them, she tells me, that surprise package would have gone up without us having any warning at all. When I found out Fralick was aboard the old Angel, when Maddy showed up, it started to fall into place. I already had the politics right—he’s the Isolationists’ main standard bearer, and one of the things they need most right now is to prevent ex-Service officers like us scramblers from joining up with the Rebs to provide them with trained leadership.” Dan passed a hand over his jaw.
He continued, “I wouldn’t expect Captain Giandrea to order assassinations, but probably all he actually did was go along with the inspection to humor Fralick. That bastard’s slippery as hell, there’s not much I’d put past him—and he hates me almost as much as he hates Linc. He blames Linc for the Matushka leaving him, me for not having the decency to die when Ewan did, and both of us because we’re in her life and he’s out of it. So maybe I overshot when I made sure you got reported dead along with the rest of us, Rachel, but we didn’t know Fralick was anywhere near Narsai when Hansie and I had to make that judgment call. And we did think it might be connected to you, at the time that was an assumption we had to make.”
“So how long are we stuck here for?”
That some hosts might have thought her speech a rude one, did not enter Kane’s mind. Fortunately Reen Romanova understood her real meaning, and notified Archer with a quick glance that she wasn’t taking offense. The Narsatian farm woman said, “You’re welcome to stay with us as long as you like, Ms. Kane. Dan knows that, he’s been here many times. But since Narsatian laws and customs don’t protect out-worlders in any way, I suggest that you may be safer if you do leave as soon as you can. Hiding you is the only way we have of protecting you. If you are located here, there’ll be nothing I can do to help you afterward.”
Dan nodded and said, “Reen’s right, you know. Now that the Archangel’s left orbit I’m only going to wait until I’ve touched bases with the Matushka again. After that we’re getting out of here. I thought letting you lie low on Narsai was a good idea, Rachel, but things are a hell of a lot different now than they were when I set this up.”
Trabe Kourdakov looked again at the hard copy communication on his desk, and then he looked out the window of his office. He could see the northern parklands from here, and to the city’s south lay one of Narsai’s very few mountain ranges.
He loved MinTar, he always had. His own parents had been professors at this university, and he had hoped that if his daughter could not reconcile herself to living full-time on the Romanov Farmstead that maybe spending part of her time on faculty here might solve the problem. But Katy had done what it pleased her to do, first as a girl of eighteen by entering the Star Service; then as a young woman, by marrying a man who called Kesra instead of Narsai home.
Still, Kourdakov had been fond of the grandsons Katy and her husband had brought here so long ago as babies. And it had been fun having three of them instead of the usual one, or at most (to great social disapproval) two children that Narsatian families were allowed to produce. He had been glad for Katy that on Kesra she hadn’t been pressured to abort one of her twins when she found out she was carrying not a second singleton, but both a second child and a third child simultaneously. That pressure would not be as great here on Narsai nowadays, of course; but Katy’s boys had been born a generation ago, when traditions were stronger.
And then those boys had died in battle, under their mother’s command. Little though he knew about warfare, Trabe Kourdakov was a descendant of people who had crossed light years of space to get here from Earth in an era when that had not been a safe and routine journey. He realized that in space people still died sometimes, and that in war they died often. He and his wife had grieved for their grandsons; he and Cabbie had been ready to welcome Katy home and comfort her, as much as any parent could be comforted, because they knew what it felt like to lose a child. They had lost Katy’s sister, after all; and while Katy had filled the dynastic gap in the Romanov line and had blessed their home with childish sounds and activities once more, neither Cabanne Romanova nor Trabe Kourdakov had pretended—even to each other—that Katy replaced their lost Madeleine.
Katy had gone directly back to Kesra after the battle and subsequent negotiations at Mistworld, though, so her parents had had no chance to console her. They had waited, expecting that in due time she would come to see them with the new daughter she named for her sister whom she hadn’t known. For them to go to Kesra did not enter either of their heads, and that he could have done that did not cross Kourdakov’s mind now.
After little Madeleine’s birth Katy had once again done what pleased her, instead of her duty. She had left her husband—not to go back to her career (something her parents had learned to accept after more than twenty-five years of watching her do that again and again), but to become an unmarried woman once more. And she had not first brought her daughter home to Narsai, to be raised where a Romanova’s daughter certainly should have been brought up. Incredibly, she had bowed to an alien judge’s custody decision and had left the girl with her husband on Kesra.
Her formal union some months later with the Morthan man who had been her friend and comrade throughout her career was just one more unpleasant surprise for her parents. Human women sometimes did marry Morthan males; and while Kourdakov personally found the rumors about those hybrid creatures’ sexual prowess disgusting, he supposed what women who weren’t Narsatian heiresses did was their own business. But his Katy was a direct descendant of her world’s original settlers! She had a social position that was worth protecting; her ancestors’ dignity should have meant more to her than whatever it was her second husband did to her in bed, that could make her forget everything that was decent.
Fralick had to have been right, she’d probably been giving herself to the mindfucker all along. Only through genetic verification had the poor fellow even been sure that Madeleine was indeed his child, and not that pervert Casey’s.
Like most human males (George Fralick included), Trabe Kourdakov knew intellectually that matings between Morthan males and human females were sterile; but in his gut he was sure that sometime, somewhere, some human woman was going to become the first to bear a child from such a union. All of Kourdakov’s intelligence and scholarship could not overcome his instinctive reaction to the idea of his daughter lying in a Morthan’s arms; as far as he was concerned, Katy had allowed herself to be contaminated.
So he’d had no contact with his child since before her boys had been killed, until now. Until this moment, when he looked up from the message after perusing it one more time—and realized that he really was hearing his daughter’s voice, that after all this time he really was seeing her face.